The running joke of showing Heiankyo Alien with increasingly strained relationships to what you’re talking about is quickly becoming one of my favourite things.

That Jellyfish Bomber for Atari artwork is spot on. XD

I actually had Jaws as a kid and.... didn't hate it! It's not great and very simple, but swimming around blasting stingrays and sharks is surprisingly fun in a mindless semi-zen sorta way and the "level up" mechanic (such as it is) adds just a TINY SMIDGE of texture. Also, true to it's source material Jaws himself is big, bad, and mean and you DO NOT want to fight him if you're low level. Which makes the sonar mechanic (which pulses steadily faster the closer he gets to you) and seeing that fin come up from the water when he's in striking distance KINDA LEGITIMATELY TERRIFYING?? At least, it does if you can count your age on your fingers. Expected Jeremy to eviscerate the game, but ended up actually pleased he was able to see the same few bits of value in 7-9 year old me's C-List that I was.

Jaws' general "Atariness" is what always held it back for me. It never felt like a 1987 game. I'd already been spoiled by games that lasted way longer than fifteen minutes by that point.

Even in Retronauts, FOE!

A multi-mode movie license? I'm surprised Ocean didn't have their grubby mitts on Jaws then, literally every movie license they pushed out in the 80s and early 90s were just a bunch of mini games to resemble scenes from whatever film they had picked up. In fact, I feel it wasn't until Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay did publishers/developers realize they didn't have to stick verbaitm to a movie's plot to make a game based off of it.

for those lost at 6:00: the game (series) in question is Etrian Odyssey.

I have to say, that pixel art image of Jaws really enhances this line from the original movie: "You know, the thing about a shark, he's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes" Nothing blacker or more lifeless than a blank pixel.

😢 I loved Karate Kid back in the day! Catching those flies was amazing to my 11 year old brain - it was just like being in the movie. (Of course when you couldn’t afford but a game or two a year as a kid, you tried to find the good in all of them.)

Wasn't expecting so many quips and jabs! Even from the get-go this was quite the fun ride.

Ah, there it is! Heiankyo Alien!

Perfecting the game was “all in wrist:” Game on, game off.

I want to register a vote for Karate Kid being certainly more fun to play than outlined here. I own a copy and pop it in regularly. It's far from perfect and the unfair difficulty aspects are fair critiques, but in my collection of 200-300 NES carts, its far from the worst. Besides enjoying the basic brawler/fighting platformer gameplay, I admire the game's attempt to include different types of stages and mini games, especially the decision to open with the End of KK1--sort of a cool decision, rather than adding silly interpretations of high school fights--right to the good part.

Ah, disgruntled dev rants brimming with rage hidden in the game's code... Classic. You just can't do that anymore. 😅

I think Karate Kid's bad rap isn't entirely deserved. As far as licensed games go, it's very authentic to its source material. It starts off at the end of the first movie and goes through the entire second movie. You can avoid fighting the boss in the third stage by simply ignoring him and rescuing the girl, similarly to how Daniel selflessly rescues the girl in the second movie. The challenge of not scaring Kumiko off the platform in the final fight serves to increase tension like how Chozen threatened and attacked her. (It's also very much needed to increase the challenge, since proper timing and a good supply of specials wrecks bosses normally.) And of course the bonus games are all greatest hits moments from the films. Its technical shortcomings are unfortunate (bad collision detection being chief among them), but I daresay this game is surprisingly ambitious for a licensed side-scrolling action game.

For all bad LJN games, we must just watch the AVGN.

I know the title says Jaws, but it really feels like you want to talk about Wonder Boy.

IOSYS, now there is a name I haven't heard of in a long time.

Man LJN was pumping out games during this time period of the NES

Things I never expected: NES Jaws being compared to Etrian Odyssey.

Laughing Joking Numbnuts strikes with double trouble on this episode of NES Works.

In Jaws you can actually earn additional "strobes" for the final scene once you got your power level up to 9 making additional port visits. I found this out while trying to beat the final scene never understanding you needed the red section of the boat to make contact with Jaws and not the boat itself. I even called a Nintendo Game Counselor in 1990 (remember them?) and all they said was "get more strobes". Thanks Nintendo!

I wondered if Baby Shark would be referenced. Which is pretty fitting. Despite claims that the song is an old public domain work with an unknown creator, more evidence seems to point to the song being created during the popularity of Jaws, and the first "kid friendly" version may only date back to 2011. Which is why Johnny Only is currently suing Pinkfong for copyright infringement, as the song Pinkfong popularized appears to copy heavily from his 2011 "kid friendly" version.

In line for my copy of Jellyfish Bomber

Fun fact: Jaws is a game shown in the window of the "antique" store in Back to the Future 2 (along with BurgerTime)

Yeah, I had Jaws as a kid and I've always thought it was pretty decent. Although I never could get the timing right on the final segment.

The Jaws NES game needs a bigger boat

Had to give a like for at 6:15 since that is a reference to my favorite RPG series Etrian Odyssey.

Even during NES Works F O E

I am absolutely chomping at the bit for this episode about Jaws

I know I stumbled into too many garage sales when I have TWO copies of Karate Kid and I have no idea how I obtained either

You can tell Jeremy got bored while playing these games due the amount of jokes there are in video

2:55 The real enemy in Jaws.

I loved the Jaws game as a kid. Was always frustrated by the negative reception it's gotten over the years.

Heh, never thought I'd see an IOSYS clip here. That was nice. :)

I so look forward to your videos every wednesday! They really help make my days! :)

More than Jaws serving as the original F.O.E. (🎵F.O.E., F.O.E.🎵), Jaws' gameplay look makes me wonder if the folks at WayForward weren't a little inspired by it when they designed the JRPG/sidescrolling shooter Sigma Star Saga. Probably not, but the similarities are palpable.

*Sees Karate Kid* *Remembers LJN* -Eventually we're going to get a NES Back to the Future video, right? *Shudders*

Starting the end credits music was unexpected and I like it!

I really enjoyed Karate Kid when I had it in the early 90s. It was hard, but there was something that kept bringing me back to it.

Karate Kid is WORSE than Karate Champ?! I didn't think that was possible.

I want to say that it is possible to beat Jaws all the way down at power level 0. You don't want to do it, because you have to almost chase Jaws off screen, circle around close behind, and stay still as much as possible so that you only get Jaws fights. It's definitely worth it to get at least power level 1 or 2 if you are feeling masochistic and want to get a chance at a win before you 'should.'

The 3rd stage in Karate Kid is an absolute nightmare

HUH. Jaws wasn't developed by LJN...just licensed by them. That would explain why it's the sole LJN game that I actually like, unironically.

I remember renting both of these games. Jaws was fun, but don't remember wanting to buy it! As for Karate Kid, it was one of the first times I could distinctly remember not liking a video game. Still beat it as I was seven and apparently must have hated myself.

Karate Kid is pretty good if you think about it as a sequel to Kung Fu, which it basically was.

Rubbing alcohol and a magic eraser takes permanent marker off NES cartridges super easily (Karate Kid cart)

As a kid I had Jaws, Ghostbusters and the first TMNT game. I thought these were all of similar quality to each other and Super Mario 3. Kids are dumb.

You can always tell an action platformer is going to suck when it lacks any kind of grace period after taking damage. I didn't play many games during the NES era when I was a kid, so luckily I was spared the experience of LJN games.

My younger friend and his brother that lived next door loved movies and were suckers for these LJN releases. Way too much time spent trying to get through the frustrating single player parts. At least Karate Kid's versus mode provided some mutual amusement.

I got Jaws when I got my NES for Christmas in 1988. I played the heck out of it. And so did my mom. When I got a Genesis she moved the NES into her room and loved Jaws and Galaga. She actually discovered that Jaws has a kill screen like Donkey Kong. If you keep collecting shells and power ups without killing Jaws, it breaks the game. Not surprising considering the development story.

I always had hoped that we'd get a huge Jaws sprite underwater ala the crocodile sprite in The Adventure of Tom Sawyer

I rented Jaws more than once as a kid and had fun with it. Yes, the end-stage was baffling to me and I never came close to getting through it, but I didn't understand its bad reputation. After playing the X-Men game, I at least understood why LJN had a bad reputation.

I think you're a little rough on Karate Kid. Like, the technical things you pointed out are especially correct, but the fact that we didn't get an infinite loop of the 1v1 section with maybe some mini-games thrown in is kind of astounding considering devs had a month to work on this. Also, I've seen games that have more dev time that are borderline unplayable, not just unfair, so the fact that this game doesn't pull some Cheetahmen softlocking nonsense is sort of a miracle in itself.

Jaws' overworld theme, Lunar Pool's in-game theme, The Incredible Machine's "Euro"...

Was LJN dissolved before Bart vs the Space Mutants was released? Because I can’t think of any other reason why Acclaim would have put their own name on that on instead of giving it the Alan Smithee treatment.

I love Jaws, and karate kid is on my top 10 favorite NES games. But I’ll forgive you because this video is pretty funny anyway. If you Give karate kid a good hour or two you should be able to beat the game in 10 minutes or less. My computer died so I can’t fire it up in the emulator, but I’m pretty sure you can’t select difficulty in karate kid. Also the trick to killing jaws in that final part, you have to press the stab button when you see his soft white underbelly (blue oyster cult reference)

Can't believe you completely ignored the first true fighting game on the NES: Urban Champion

Good video as per usual mr. parish.

That's weird. I always thought The Karate Kid stage 4 was based off of the cliff sequence in the horrible third movie. But it couldn't be because the game came out well before part III. But when were they in a desert during the second film? Could the designers have been briefed on part III while making the game?

I don't care what anyone says. Jaws Rawks!

Looking forward to your Mega Man review

"in which Pat Morita turns Ralph Macchio into the great white hope of martial arts" 😂😂😂

Hi Jeremy I'm a big fan of your video series and your longer game history pieces on USGamer. they're a great comfort in my self quarantine (as most Belgians are required bye the government to do so). An off topic question: I've got a golden NES PAL cartridge of Zelda (so far so good :) ) But the cartridge it self was actually produced bye Bandai. I'm very surprised that Nintendo would release a first party game on a Bandai cartridge. If this is a Bootleg, it must be one of the finest ever produced , sine it looks and works immaculate. As the leading NES historian (at least in my book ;) ), could you shed some light on the matter?!

I wonder how many viewers actually got the reference to that Etrian Odyssey song, that's a pretty dated reference tbh

love this show

Is Jaws's overworld theme the same as the Lunar Pool music...?

Happy Wednesday morning, everyone.

I have fun memories of playing Jaws with my friend Danny who had autism. When I got my Analogue Nt Mini, Jaws was one of the first cartridges I bought on eBay :)

Why were so many games created by departments at music labels? Why is that? I get they obviously wouldn't have a department especially for games at this point in time, but music departments seem like a weird choice.

Can we please publish your reviews in a quarterly magazine, and send them back in time to correspond them with the release date of these games? I’d love to see the video games in that parallel universe that would be produced.

LJN the angry video game nerd favorite company

9:09 It’s a ghost!

AVGN intensifies...

Is it hip to hate Jaws now? Was it all the merch? WAS IT??!!!!! WE DIDN’T LISTEN!!!!!!

Let's Just N- oh. OH!

beatable in 15 minutes yet i never beat it as a kid lol

I've always enjoyed both games, actually play through Karate Kid pretty regularly. It's a little quirky but there are far worse games out there.

LJN the mark of quality... NOT!

"the first proper fighting game on NES" No, I'm going to have to give Trojan that honor as it's a much better game.

Was Karate Kid supposed to be a sequel to the movie? Like, a Symphony of the Night-style final boss intro?

The shark is actually called Jaws?

With all this talk about Atlus I kind of want to see a Famicom Works Gaiden on Megami Tensei now

Interesting to hear somebody called Jaws a bad movie, people think it's a masterpiece, I agree with you though LOL! I enjoyed the game but its mostly Nostalgia why I would still play it. There are far too few enemy types etc but I did like it as a kid quite a bit, I liked the "travel back and forth leveling up the boat 🛥 " aspect and as a kid it felt like a real world in a way most games that aren't Zelda didn't.

The Karate Kid was not that bad on the N.E.S. I completed the game quite a few times. The game is pretty fun.

I have hazy memories of playing Karate Kid as a child, and I seem to remember the AI was predictable enough that I could fairly reliably finish up through the typhoon section (and I wasn't very good at either beat-em-ups or platformers). I don't think I ever got much farther than that, because I literally have no memory of the rest. But yeah, the only real appeal was that I was a fan of the movies.

You didnt mention the roaring jaws in Jaws the revenge. For shame. Everyone needs to know this movie was so bad the fuckin shark roars like a lion or bear! 😉😆

So Karate Kid nes game its based on the second movie....

Crap! It is an RPG. So was this one of my first RPGs as a kid?

I love NES Jaws. There is also a sub! in the game you can find so long as you hit enough points. I think it's 35,000, and then 55,000...

Too harsh on Karate Kid.

"god-awful movie"?! Surely you jest. Oh, Jaws: The Revenge. *Whew*

“Another god-awful movie”? JAWS?? Do you hate movies?

JAWS was one of the very first video games I'd ever played. Prior to that, I had played the arcade version of TRON once, and a couple tries at Round 42 on my dad's Apple II. The game is not very good, and definitely not the best introduction to the NES, but dang it if I don't have a lot of nostalgia for it.

how about Roger Rabbit 1989 LJN.

Karate Kid is a game that I wanted to like. But the main event (the side scrolling action) really is that terrible. I like the other bits though... The minigames, and even the 1x1 fights.

I actually enjoyed the Karate Kid back in the day. Was it great? Not even close but it was fun to beat every once in a while. The things that held it back more than anything in my opinion was jump being assigned to up on the d-pad and having to stop moving to do special moves.

I feel like every episode should have a little IOSYS

Lol carpet bombing jellyfish

I didn't think jaws and karate kid were that bad. I wish jaws would have been longer thou.